Article I: Name

The name of this standing committee shall be The Graduate Council of the University of North Florida. It serves as the faculty’s representative body for governance of the Graduate School at the University of North Florida.

Article II: Purpose

Section 1.

The Graduate Council is vested with the responsibility of formulating, reviewing, disseminating, and monitoring the implementation of policies and procedures concerning graduate education at the University of North Florida, including but not limited to:

To that end, the Council approves all proposals for new graduate programs or changes to current programs. The Council approves renewal of graduate faculty and must approve requests for non-graduate faculty to teach graduate courses. The Council’s advice may be sought regarding the allocation of graduate assistantship funding, but the Council will not allocate such resources.

Section 2.

Graduate Council policies, including all policy and procedural information published in the Graduate Catalog and other university documents, are subject to review and approval by the College Deans, the Dean of the Graduate School, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the President. They may also be subject to review and approval by the Faculty Association.

Article III: Membership

Section 1.

The Graduate Council is composed of voting and non-voting members. The membership is determined as follows: (a) Voting members. All voting members must be graduate faculty. Each department offering a graduate program shall be represented by one member. The Dean of the Graduate School shall automatically serve. (b) Non-voting members. The Faculty Association President, the Dean of the Library, the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services, and the Director of the Graduate School, or their designees, will serve as ex-officio, non-voting members of the Council. The President of the Graduate Student Organization, or her/his appointed delegate, will serve as the graduate student representative. Program Directors otherwise not appointed by their department to serve as voting members are encouraged to attend as non-voting members of the Graduate Council.(c) The Dean of the Graduate School shall serve as chairsperson of the Council.

Section 2.

The following guidelines prescribe the designation of Council members. A list of departments offering graduate programs may be found in Appendix A. (a) Existing program representatives. Each department offering a graduate program will, according to that department’s policies and procedures, designate a representative for the Graduate Council. New designees for existing graduate programs will take office at the first regularly scheduled meeting in the fall semester. (b) New department representatives. As new graduate programs are approved, the Council membership may grow in accordance with the bylaws. Such growth will not require revisions to the bylaws so long as the changes affect only the membership. Appendix A will be revised as necessary, the revision date noted on that page. New programs within departments already represented on the Council shall be represented by the existing Council member. Departments otherwise not represented will designate a representative to serve on the Council. New representatives may take office at the next regularly scheduled meeting. (c) Student representative. The Chairperson of the Graduate Student Organization or her/his appointed delegate, in accordance to that organization’s constitution, will represent the graduate student body on the Graduate Council.